Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/534

 Narottama Das. 498 BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE. [ Chap 4 ° at meeting the king. The queens now believed 5 that it was Gopichand, the king, who had returned. All this we find in Manik Chandra Rajar gan about | which we have written in an earlier chapter. % With the advent of Chaitanya Deva and under the noble example of his asceticism, princes and rich men came forward to undergo sacrifices” for the sake of religion. All ranks of society” came to realise the vanity of human wishes, the transitoriness of life and the glorious power of faith. We find many prominent instances of princely asceties, among whom we may name Narot- | tama Das, son and heir of Raja Krisna Chandra Dutta of Crikheturi, who left his vast wealth and his_ palace, when only a lad of sixteen and walked on foot to Vrindavan. He lived there a life of piety and devo- tion which lights up the sky of the Vaisnava com- munity immediately after the halo of Chaitanva Deva’s personality has passed away from it. Narot- tam’s life is deseribed by Narahari Chakravarti, in his famous work Narottam Vitas. Though only a_ Kayastha by birth, his influence was so great that | many good Brahmins like Ganga Narayan Chakra. | vatty became his willing disciples, and acknow- ledged him as their spiritual head. An interesting | incident is described about him in the Narottama | Vilas. The Raja of Pakvapalli was approached | by the orthodox Brahmin community with an application, that Narottama, the Prince of Kheturi, | who had turned Sannyasin, was breaking caste by taking Brahmins as his disciples while he himself was | a Cudra. They requested the Raja to inflict a se-) vere punishment on Narottama for this impertinence. | The Raja sent a message to Narottama, asking him